Masterclass: How to Like Yourself
Many people are aware that liking themselves more, trusting themselves more, and being more confident would be helpful to them.
If they were more confident and secure in themselves, they’d get more done, they’d try more new things, they’d be more persistent when facing obstacles, and they’d bounce back faster.
But once you understand this in theory…here’s the funny thing that can sometimes happen next.
You notice that you’re criticizing and questioning yourself in a specific moment…
You can see that it’s holding you back and preventing you from doing the things want to do…
And so in that moment, you tell yourself: I should be more confident!! Why do I keep tearing myself down and questioning myself?
But here’s the funny thing about talking to yourself that way.
First off: Yes, it’s true. Being more confident, having more trust in yourself, believing that you are good at this and can figure it out would genuinely be helpful in this moment.
AND… Notice how you feel when say, “I should be more confident!!” to yourself.
What is the emotion that gets created in that moment?
For many people, they say that sentence to themselves in a way that makes them feel: angry, frustrated, small, ashamed, guilty, stressed.
So yes, it’s true that liking yourself more WOULD be helpful in this moment…
AND…you’ve turned your quest to like yourself into a new way to NOT like yourself.
When you yell at yourself for not being confident enough…
…you turn your quest to be more confident into yet another arena where you can fail and then be less confident.
(It’s no different than yelling at a crying toddler: “You should be happy!!!!”)
This is how we take genuinely helpful tools and concepts and inadvertently use them against ourselves.
This is how we set out to go from Point A to Point Z…and accidentally dig ourselves into an even deeper hole at Point A. 🕳️
And don’t worry if you do this. This is 100% normal. Nothing is wrong with you. I do this too!
But, once you notice what’s happening, what should you do next?
You DO want to like yourself more. And you DON’T want to inadvertently turn your “learn to like myself” journey into even more reasons NOT to like yourself…
So here’s what I want you to do next—
Start practicing liking yourself
The way to be more confident is NOT to yell at yourself for not being confident enough today.
The only way to like yourself more is to practice liking yourself.
Just like with any new skill — you need to get daily, consistent reps over an extended period of time.
You need to practice feeling proud, accomplished, admiring of, confident in, impressed with, and loving of yourself.
In little bits. Every day. Consistently. Over an extended period of time.
It’s no different than lifting weights.
And when it comes to liking yourself more, here are the different levels of weights available to you—
💪🏽 2 lb weight: Appreciate the good things you’re already doing
Most people discount or write off the good things they’re already doing and the positive traits they already have.
They say things like: “Oh, it’s not that impressive. It’s not a big deal. It’s just table-stakes.”
But every time you look at something GOOD about yourself and you feel neutral or dismissive of it, you’re missing an opportunity to practice liking yourself.
(And you’re actually getting another rep at being dismissive of your accomplishments!)
So here’s an easy daily workout you can do with this 2 lb weight:
10 times a day, pause, notice, and CELEBRATE a good thing you’ve done.
It could be an accomplishment from the past, a task you got done today, the way you handled a meeting, an insight you had, or the way you were able to help someone. Make it specific.
And take a minute to just soak it in and feel proud of yourself and integrate that thing into your identity.
It’s not just a thing that happened. That’s who you are.
💪🏽 10 lb weight: Take things that could be seen either way and interpret them positively
Lots of things are ambiguous. Good thing about you? Bad thing about you? Glass half empty? Glass half full? Who knows?
But left to your own devices, your brain is going to go with glass half empty — not because it’s true but because that’s what it’s used to doing.
So take those ambiguous things and consciously interpret them as GOOD things about you.
You spoke up in a meeting?
❌ NO, it wasn’t awkward and too long…
✅ YES, you were brave enough to jump in and you raised something no one had said yet
You grabbed dinner with a friend on a weeknight?
❌ NO, you’re not behind on work now…
✅ YES, you’re finding ways to catch up with people and balance out your life even when things are busy
Find the specific glass half full story and then, again, take a minute to just soak it in and feel proud of yourself and integrate that thing into your identity.
It’s not just a thing that happened. It’s not a fluke. This is who you are.
💪🏽 25 lb weight: Take something you think is bad and rewrite the story
There are some things you’ve done in the past that your brain is convinced are black marks on your record.
This one is more challenging (that’s why it’s a heavier weight level!) but rewrite that story and make it something GOOD about you.
Same facts. Different story.
Let me give you an example.
I was an excellent student all throughout high school. And when I got to college…I was a VERY bad student.
I procrastinated on everything. I barely read the materials for my classes. I turned in most of my assignments late. My transcript was full of B’s and C’s — and that was with generous grade inflation.
I gained more than 40 pounds because I was stress eating all the time. I had a small group of friends and struggled to fit in or “be social.” I bounced from activity to activity without committing to anything.
I just couldn’t get it together.
And for years, I used my college experience as inarguable proof that I’m just not a productive person. I can get it together when I have external deadlines and a boss. But I’m just not a self-motivated person because at my core, I’m a lazy horrible blob.
And I used my story about my college years to 1) feel terrible about myself and 2) direct all my decision-making because I had to just “work around” the “reality” that I was a horrible lazy blob.
Rewriting this story changed my life.
Here’s the new story I wrote with the same facts.
Yes, I did procrastinate a ton, barely read my assignments, and turn in most of my assignments late.
AND I tried every goddamn day to fix the problem.
I was always trying a new system, a new timer, a new method, a new location — something to try to solve the problem.
I tried 1000 things that didn’t work. I fell down every single day again and again. I metaphorically lay on the floor for weeks at a time. And then I got up and just kept trying.
And the only issue that whole time was that I simply didn’t find the solution until many years later.
I didn’t know the coaching tools I know now. I didn’t know my thoughts & feelings were driving my actions, and that I needed to solve the problem “upstream” at the thought & feelings level, not “downstream” at the action level.
I was attacking the symptom, not the disease. And nobody told me! So of course, I didn’t figure it out!
Falling down again and again was simply a Process Problem, not a Me Problem.
And looking back now, I’m so damn proud of the scared, lost, directionless version of me that just kept trying to figure it out even when I truly did not have the tools I needed.
The other thing I’m proud of my college years — I made gold out of the mud I was in. I procrastinated by watching HOURS of TV…and decided to become a screenwriter, took two years of screenwriting classes, and wrote a final thesis that was a screenplay. (Not a good screenplay! One I nearly gave up on altogether! But I finished it.)
I also procrastinated by watching HOURS of k-pop music videos…and I taught myself how to read and write the Korean alphabet by myself and then signed up for Korean language classes in my last two years in college.
Yes, I absolutely did NOT do the actual work I was supposed to be doing, and yes, my transcript fully shows the evidence of that fact.
…and I’m the kind of person that even when I’m only watching TV and listening to k-pop to escape how horrible I feel about myself, I still make something beautiful and worthwhile out of it. Even at my worst, I still make gold.
And as I rewrote this story for myself, I started to see my college years not as the black mark that I could never erase or the limitation I could never get past — but as proof of the GOODNESS that is in me even when I’m at my lowest.
Of the fact that even when you pile a mountain of dirt on top of me, there’s still a light within me that can shine through.
My college years are not a bad thing about me. They are a brave, strong, noble thing about me.
It’s the story of a girl who had no idea she was still more than 10 years away from figuring this out, but she showed up bravely every single day no matter what. And by the way, did an INSANE amount of things in the meantime while having NONE of the information or tools that she really needed.
If I could make it through then, knowing as little as I did, I can do anything now.
This is what I mean when I say rewrite the story.
Same facts. Different meaning.
You can’t go back and change what happened in the past.
But the story you tell about it — what you make it MEAN about you and your future and who you are as a person — that story is 100% in your control.
I told the crappy version of my college story for 10 years. I rewrote it in a few weeks.
Just because you’re used to telling it one way doesn’t mean you have to tell it that way forever.
There is an equally valid, equally resonant, better feeling, more helpful version of that story just waiting for you to write it.
💪🏽 50 lb weight: Like the part of you that struggles to like yourself
Your inner critic isn’t a green-eyed monster hellbent on sabotaging you and keeping you small.
“Inner critic” is just the mask that the little kid inside you wears when it’s really, really scared and it thinks that the only path to safety is self-rejection.
What you think your inner critic is…
What your inner critic actually is:
Let me say it one more time:
So when your inner critic starts talking and giving you all the reasons you’re going to fail and you aren’t good enough.
Don’t argue with the inner critic.
Reach out to the scared little kid underneath it.
That scared little kid doesn’t need to be yelled at. She’s already afraid enough. More yelling is not going help her.
All she needs is to be wrapped up in a whole lot of love. All she needs is a big, warm hug.
So every time your inner critic speaks up—
Reach out to that scared little kid and tell her:
I love you. I trust you. I’ve got your back. I’ll always be here. I know you’ve got this.
Now, construct your workout routine.
Remember, liking yourself is just like lifting weights.
It’s going to feel weird and unnatural at first.
But if you do a little bit every day, consistently, over time, you cannot help but develop this muscle. It’s literally impossible NOT to.
So what’s your workout routine going to be? Which weights are you choosing? How many reps per day will you aim for? Will you do the same things every day or mix it up and keep it fun?
The only thing that can prevent you from learning how to like yourself is if you stop getting reps.
(Just like your muscles WILL get weaker and smaller if you stop training them.)
So let me tell you the top 3 reasons people stop getting reps – and what to do about them.
Reason 1: It feels weird and fake.
Yes! It’s going to feel really weird and fake to be nice to yourself!
That’s not because it’s wrong. It’s only because it’s unfamiliar.
Everything feels weird and fake the first few times you do it.
And frankly, weird is an upgrade, compared to stressed, unconfident, anxious — and all the other emotions you’re used to feeling about yourself.
The weirdness will go away as you get used to this new way of thinking. The same way it stops feeling so weird to walk into the weight room, once you’ve done it a few dozen times.
Don’t let the unfamiliarity of it be your reason to stop. Just keep going and you’ll soon forget that it ever felt weird in the first place.
Reason 2: I’m afraid this will make me arrogant.
Listen, this is a valid fear. You’ve probably seen lots of examples of people who seem really full of themselves and overly confident — and you don’t want to be like them.
But here’s what I have to tell you: Try it and see.
“This will make me arrogant” is just a hypothesis.
I already know that liking yourself won’t make you arrogant because arrogance actually comes from IN-security whereas confidence and liking yourself helps you stop thinking about yourself at all and just focus on the problem at hand.
But you know what? You don’t even have to believe me. I want you to go gather your own data. Test your hypothesis.
Will liking yourself more make you arrogant? Get 50 data points — 50 concrete situations where you switched over to liking yourself and then note down what you did next — and then tell me what you find.
Reason 3: I should already like myself. What’s wrong with me that I have to work so hard at this?
First of all, nothing is wrong with you.
Very, very few people automatically, effortlessly like themselves. Even the people you most admire and look up to, who seem like paragons of success, are most likely a mess of insecurities on the inside.
It’s because we all have automatic brains that are evolved to focus on the negative.
And because we all grow up receiving one million messages about how we’re not good enough as we are.
If you put someone who has a genetic predisposition to lung cancer in rooms full of cigarette smoke for their whole lives…they’ll develop lung cancer.
If you take a human automatic brain with a genetic predisposition for finding threats and problems everywhere it looks…
And you bombard it with messages about how it’s not good enough for its whole life…
It’ll internalize those messages and it’ll need some practice to learn how to like itself.
But let me tell you the flip side of doing this work:
How great is it that the answer is to like yourself more?
What does that say about who you are at your core — that the simple solution you’ve been looking for is just to like, and love, and trust the thing that’s already within you?
How great must you be, that THAT’S the answer?
And how FUN is that work, when your only responsibility is to walk the maze of life and, in every unexplored corner, find a new way to fall in love with yourself? Best homework assignment ever.
I’ve told you exactly what you need to do — a specific, customizable blueprint that you can start on today.
I’ve told you what obstacles you’ll run into and exactly how to navigate around them and keep going.
Let me give you one more gift: lifelong implementation.
Liking yourself and being more confident is exactly like building muscle.
You cannot stop yourself from doing it if you just stay consistent.
And the drop-dead EASIEST way to stay consistent?
Hire a coach.
Put the commitment on your calendar.
Set aside the time every week to troubleshoot, problem-solve, and adjust whatever needs to be adjusted.
Give yourself the resource of an expert to reach out to when things get tough.
You know when you hire a GMAT tutor to make sure you get a high enough score?
Or a personal trainer to make sure you get your butt in shape?
Or a financial advisor to make sure you and your loved ones will be taken care of financially?
There are so many areas of your life where you already make a commitment to yourself and bring in an expert in order to guarantee the results you want.
This is just like that — except it’s for the most important part of your life and the wellspring from which all your other wealth and wellness flows.
It’s for your relationship with yourself.
Let’s get started today.
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